2011 Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet

Come, friend, on our good and fearless quest for meaning at the heart of this infernal chimera.

Come, friend, on our good and fearless quest for meaning at the heart of this infernal chimera.

Tell me, oh muses, of the hero who hacked the famous Murano of Nissan. Who was this who beheaded the benign crossover and created this fearsome CrossCabriolet? What god does he serve? Is it the sun god Helios? Hades, king of the underworld? Or was it Hera, the queen of women and childbirth, whose nest is now empty?

“His heralds call this hero Ghosn,” the muses whisper. “A mighty hero, the Ghosn sees noble niches in markets. It is the Ghosn who leverages Murano into that which no mortal dare imagine. Ghosn, who descends from the cedars of Lebanon and rose from the banks of the Amazon to claim the twin realms of Nissan and Renault, takes no order from Mount Olympus.”

So it is the mighty Ghosn himself who has slain the line-topping Murano LE’s roof and taken two doors with it! It is as a Centaur, with the torso of a man and the body and legs of a horse. The CrossCabriolet is mere Murano for its first third and another thing behind. “Remember,” the muses quietly warn, “it’s the horse’s hind that kicks.”

Fished from the Pontus Sea of Ubiquity is the CrossCabriolet’s V-6, the 3.5-liter VQ that washes up often on the shores of Nissan. With the strength of 265 horses, it is not weak. The beast, though, is burdened with 4413 pounds, and physics hath no myth. All the wheels are driven, but the Nissan heralds say the Murano’s appeal to mortals is “gender neutral.” And since they cannot get even their gender into gear, the hero Ghosn has deemed they have a lazy continuously variable transmission.

Hermes would be displeased. Feet of aluminum 20 inches tall wearing 235/55R-20 all-season Toyo Proxes sandals do not mean the CrossCabriolet is fleet or fast. Chronos, the keeper of time, says it takes this creature 7.9 seconds to touch 60 mph and 16.2 seconds to run a quarter-mile. No charioteer will yoke the CrossCabriolet as part of his team.

Soft as a velvet fog, the CrossCabriolet feels as if Mel of Tormé himself had tuned the lyre of its strutting front and rear of many links suspension. Alas, this means the beast only stays to a skidpad at 0.78 g and wallows at the feel of angry spur. Ah, but it is redeemed in measure by sweetly numb steering of rack and pinion that varies with speed.

“To ride softly is no vice,” shouts Apollo as he points to the fine hides of the CrossCabriolet’s sybaritic den. The thrones there are indeed fit for the Olympians, shaped as if by the hand of Zeus himself. And in back, there’s even room for Aphrodite to stretch out her long porcelain limbs. Restrain the roof under its cover (it takes but one button held—an eternity), and the air remains temperate even as a tempest blows above. “Only the Phantom Drophead Coupé from the Rolls and Royce is grander in the open air,” concludes Apollo, as he returns to his music and poetry.

“Ah, the roof,” insinuates Dionysus, the god of wine and parties. “It’s seductive, no? From thick double lining to tight seal, it is among the best of the supple kind. And there is a second window atop the roof for the gods to watch over those inside!” Many bags of air and roll bars that pop up ensure mortal survival should Ares bring his wrath and war upon all the Muranos. And the doors are as imposing and heavy as the Parthenon itself. As its wont, the cowl will shudder on the rutted road to Hades, but this is no Sebring of Chrysler.

It’s Athena, goddess of wisdom and reason, who perceives that the CrossCabriolet has limitations. “As the hero Achilles had his heel,” she says, “so the CrossCabriolet has a trunk of puniness. When the top is down, there is but eight cubic feet. It is a sport-utility without sport or utility. It is a crossover that crosses over to where form has no relation to function. It is a monster that cannot sate its own appetites!”

Icarus may have had wings of wax and feathers, but it did not make him a bird. And when the wings fastened with wax melted off, he found he was a man high in the air without a chute. And a Centaur has never won the Derby of Kentucky.

Thus is the conundrum that confounds all the gods but one. Who would spend at least $47,190 of the American dollars for a CrossCabriolet? Demeter, the goddess of fertility, would find her seed without purchase in it. Aphrodite sees no great beauty in it for her to love. And Zeus would insist that his reach at least the level of Infiniti.

That leaves Hera, with her emptied nest. Once, she had to move offspring around, but now she lives near the course of golf behind the gates in the community of Olympus. She no longer needs a crossover to move from brunch with Gaia to dinner with Hemera. Yet she likes to drive up high as is the crossover’s way, wants to be in the sun, and her only cargo is the dog of laps. It is for her that the Ghosn has commissioned the Murano CrossCabriolet in the far-off land of Nippon.

The muses will sing of the Ghosn’s daring and bravery in bringing the Murano CrossCabriolet to the United States with a verse that tells that it will not dwell in any other nation. And the muses will warn the Ghosn, like all the heroes before him, that while he must battle his enemies, his greatest danger lies within. That, of course, is the great Greek, godly sin of hubris.

But that is for tomorrow. For today, sing the song of the hero Ghosn. Let us feast! May every bowl be full of salad and the sticks of bread be soft and plentiful. Let us revel amid the Garden of Olives!

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